I joined the Institute of Zoology in 1988 as Veterinary Pathologist for the Zoological Society of London; a job which involved carrying out diagnostic pathology on zoo and wild animal species. Since 2001, I have been Head of Wildlife Epidemiology at the IoZ, leading a team of researchers working on wildlife diseases, with particular reference to biodiversity conservation, on a wide range of animal taxa: from snails to whales.

Research Interests:

My main area of interest is the study of disease threats to wildlife conservation, although I am also interested in host-parasite interactions and co-evolution, and in wildlife disease and comparative pathology per se.

Another area of interest is that of global amphibian population declines: probably one of the most enigmatic and worrying conservation problems of our times. Investigating these is the primary role of the IUCN’s Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force (DAPTF). Since 1997, I have been chair of the pathology and diseases working group of the DAPTF.

In 1996, I was part of an international team that co-discovered a novel chytrid fungus causing a disease of amphibians and in 1997 I co-ordinated international efforts to investigate this further. This culminated in finding that infection with this new type of chytrid fungus is closely associated with global amphibian population declines. In 2000, I was co-awarded a CSIRO medal for this work.

More about work on amphibian diseases and the role of chytridiomycosis in population declines can be found here .

Closer to home, and along with the U.K. charity Froglife , I have been investigating a new epidemic disease of frogs in Britain. Affected frogs die with either systemic haemorrhages or with skin ulceration. Using a variety of traditional and modern pathological techniques, we showed this to be caused by a ranavirus, most probably introduced from North America.

Other active wildlife research interests include infectious and non-infectious diseases of conservation significance, such as parasitic diseases of Polynesian tree snails and BSE-related diseases of zoo animals.

Daszak, P. and Cunningham, A. (1995) A report of intestinal sarcocystosis in the bullsnake (Pituophis melanoleucus sayi) and a re-evaluation of Sarcocystis sp. from snakes of the genus Pituophis. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 31, 400-403.